Nepal: A Republic That Does’nt Come of Age

December 28, 2012 by

By Shastri Ramachandaran*

IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint

NEW DELHI (IDN) – Multi-party democracy was born in Nepal in 1991 – after a popular uprising forced an autocratic king to make way for a constitutional monarchy. This year, 21 summers after an interim coalition government presided over the Himalayan kingdom’s first multi-party elections, Nepal should have come of age as a democracy, as a republic.

Unfortunately, the nascent democracy never grew up. It remains a stunted, retarded caricature of electoral democracy with institutions such as parliament, the election commission and Supreme Court standing as tragic reminders of their irrelevance. The so-called ‘Republic of Nepal’ is bereft of life breath, namely, a constitution. There is no government, at least not a legitimate one.

The Federal Democratic Republican Alliance (FDRA) government of Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai is an opportune coalition of the Maoists and the Madhesi parties. It has no basis in a constitution (because there is none), in an elected parliament (because there is none) or even in vague alibis such as ‘pleasure of the President’. It has no sanction from the people either. The government is taken to be the government because those who style themselves the government are occupying the governmental structures. In short, the government is hostage to a self-appointed group.

Nepal is a non-democracy if ever there was one.

Moribund, mutilated, dismembered – not anarchy – are the words that come to mind when reflecting on Nepal’s polity. Anarchy is vibrant, seething with chaotic energy, churning with ideas and possibilities, and it holds out at least the promise of something radically new.

The last elected parliament, in 2008, converted itself into a Constituent Assembly (CA) for drafting and delivering a new constitution. Far from attending to this task, there followed a succession of governments and prime ministers elected on the floor of the house. The CA failed to come up with a constitution within the stipulated two years, and kept extending its term until Nepal’s Supreme Court, and President, called an end to this charade. The CA was dissolved seven months ago.

The reason appeared to be differences on some of the provisions relating to federalism. It is a moot point whether the ruling coalition headed by the Maoists and the opposition – each for their own self-serving reasons – scripted such an outcome.

Regardless, after the sound and fury of hostilities died down, the parties realised that they had to begin talking and come to some agreement. Falling back on the fiction of an ‘interim constitution’ – after all some basis was required to break the constitutional, electoral, political and legal impasse – the parties agreed on elections, which was scheduled for November 22. But November 22, like all other deadlines which Nepalese politicians have failed to meet, too, passed the benighted country without any change for the better.

At issue is how to clear the decks for holding elections. Now Nepal’s political parties agree that a new Constituent Assembly must be elected within six months from November 22. Unless a new CA is elected, there can be no constitution. But the interim constitution does not have a provision for electing a second CA. This deficiency can be addressed by “amending” the constitution. The person who can do so is President Ram Baran Yadav. He has already courted controversy by the steps he proposed for resolving the stalemate.

He can invoke his constitutional power to “remove obstacles” – towards holding an election – but on the advice of the cabinet. In the prevalent situation, acting on the FDRA government’s recommendation is fraught with risks. Therefore, President Yadav wants all parties to arrive at an explicit consensus in favour of his exercising this extreme option.

The opposition, comprising the Nepali Congress (NC) and the Unified Marxist Leninist (UML) party are willing to enable a consensus and clear the way for elections only if they get to lead the government. The FDRA is asking them to come on board the Bhattarai-led coalition and make it a national government. The NC is unwilling to do this and wants Sushil Koirala as the prime minister.

The NC and UML accuse the FDRA of resisting a change of prime minister to thwart elections. The Maoists suspect that once Koirala becomes prime minister with UML support, the two parties will not hold elections to the CA.

What emerges is that all parties want to be in government without elections. All of them are fearful of going back to the people for a fresh mandate. Therefore, none of the parties may hasten to clear the ground of obstacles for holding elections in April 2013.

*The author, an independent political and foreign affairs commentator, has covered events and developments in Nepal for over 20 years. He is co-editor of the book State of Nepal. This article first appeared in DNA-Daily News & Analysis [IDN-InDepthNews – December 17, 2012]

2012 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

This article should not be republished or redistributed without the permission of the original author or copyright holder.


Filed Under: Asia, History, Lead, Politics Tagged With: , , ,

2012 Election Fable

November 6, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy

Ian Fletcher

Once upon a time there was a republic.

Like many republics before and since, it was immensely proud that it was not ruled by a king. Long ago, in fact, the citizens of the republic had overthrown a king and sent him packing.

The republic, like many other republics before and since, was ruled instead by oligarchs. They had all the money. They controlled the important institutions. All the paths of success ran through the cultivation of their favor.

But the people were unhappy with this arrangement. For they suspected that, though the republic was governed in a manner that was perhaps minimally acceptable by the standards of history and other nations, it was still not governed as well as it should be.

So the people, over time, grew unhappy with the oligarchs. Like the masses everywhere, they were accustomed to their lot, patient, and stoical. But year by year, their frustrations accumulated. Eventually, they became genuinely angry with their rulers.

Why? Because everything wrong with their society could be laid at their door. They were the ones in charge, after all.

The people demanded reform.

But the oligarchs had a brilliant idea. They gave the people a choice. They started holding elections, in which the people were allowed to choose between rival factions of servants of the oligarchs.

Each faction advertised different principles . So the people were allowed to choose between Freedom and Equality, between Stability and Progress, between God and Reason, between Tradition and Fairness, between Solidarity and Individualism, between Diversity and Unity, between Gasoline and Diesel, and even between Alternating and Direct Current.

Much hinged upon these choices. Members of the public defined their attitude towards the world and their personal moral code by which faction they voted for.

For a while, the masses were happy. They called it Democracy.

But eventually, the masses become unhappy again. Things were not working out. The country was still not well governed.

But this time, when they complained, the oligarchs had a ready reply:

“You elected the government, not us. If you don’t like it, vote to change it.”

And the people didn’t know what to say to this, because it was true.

So they did vote to change their government.

But they still weren’t happy.

So they voted to change it again.

And again.

But no matter how many times they voted, they were still not satisfied, and their frustration accumulated.

The people became convinced that if only they could elect just the right faction, under just the right charismatic leader, then everything would be fine.

They became convinced that all the country’s problems were due to the wrong faction getting elected.

They bitterly catalogued the flaws of whatever faction they did not vote for. Sometimes, they even catalogued the failure of their own faction to stick to its principles.

If only the Red Flag Faction could truly rule, and have all the government at its command, including the courts! Then everything would be well.

No! If only the Blue Flag Faction…

The people exhausted themselves comparing and trying out the different factions. They grew divided amongst themselves, bitter toward their fellow citizens, and thus unable to unite against the oligarchs.

High above, in their counting houses and their mansions, the oligarchs looked down with bemused detachment. Occasionally, when they grew bored with the ownership of professional sporting franchises, they would toy with one faction or another. But for the most part, they just let matters play out, confident in outcomes acceptable to their interests.

The factions were, after all, composed of their own servants, trained in institutions they controlled, and vetted by a long and arduous process.

Nobody bothered the oligarchs, because nothing was ever their fault. Everything bad that happened, after all, was due to the wrong faction getting elected.

Or, some men thought wise sometimes said, the failure of both factions to work together for the good of the country.

So the people mostly left the oligarchs alone. Occasionally, one faction or another made noises about them, but little came of it. The factions mostly fought each other, and in this way the republic’s finite political energies were consumed. The people and their spokesmen exhausted themselves, and political stability was achieved.

I trust I don’t have to continue with this story. My point is that democracy, for all its virtues, is a spectacularly efficient machine for the diffusion of responsibility into thin air. Unlike in more authoritarian political systems, nobody is truly accountable. Everything is always the other side’s fault. The one issue that’s never on the ballot is whether the unified governing establishment that underlies both parties should continue to govern.

My point here is not the cliché—which is false anyway—that there’s no difference between the two parties. There isn’t a lot, but there’s enough. But partisan differences themselves are a trap, because they serve largely to factionalize society so that it’s hopelessly divided and unable to resist a unified establishment whose interests are at variance with those of the public.

Most of what’s wrong with this country, starting with my own issue, free trade, is the product of a consensus that both parties share. Or, worse, they choose to abdicate responsibility on these issues entirely, leaving them to be settled by an oligarchy that is increasingly insulated from democratic accountability and free to play by its own rules.

Fixing these problems, in the long run, will mean a lot more than whether Obama or Romney wins this election. I’m not endorsing anybody this time around.

© Copyright 2012 Ian Fletcher. All rights reserved.

This article should not be republished or redistributed without the permission of the original author or copyright holder.

Ian Fletcher is Senior Economist of the Coalition for a Prosperous America, a nationwide grass-roots organization dedicated to fixing America’s trade policies and comprising representatives from business, agriculture, and labor. He was previously Research Fellow at the U.S. Business and Industry Council, a Washington think tank, and before that, an economist in private practice serving mainly hedge funds and private equity firms. Educated at Columbia University and the University of Chicago, he lives in San Francisco. He is the author of Free Trade Doesn’t Work: What Should Replace It and Why.


Filed Under: Elections, Opinion, United States Tagged With: , , , ,

Democracy Unlikely in Post-Meles Ethiopia

August 23, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

By Jerome Mwanda

IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

NAIROBI (IDN) – The death of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who has been Ethiopia’s epicentre for 21 years, will have profound national and regional consequences, but democracy and an end to repression appear unlikely, according to analysts.

The man, who led the movement that overthrew the Marxist junta Derg in 1991, had not been seen in public for several months. His death in a Belgian hospital was announced on August 20, 2012 by Ethiopian state television.

The national implications of Meles’ death should be considered against the backdrop that he engineered one-party rule in effect for the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and his Tigrayan inner circle, with the complicity of other ethnic elites that were co-opted into the ruling alliance, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). The Front promised freedom, democracy and ethnic devolution but being highly centralised, it tightly controls the economy and suppresses political, social, ethnic and religious liberties.

As the Brussels-based International Crisis Group points out, in recent years, Meles had relied ever more on repression to quell growing dissent. The Crisis Group expects his successor to lead a weaker regime that struggles to manage increasing unrest unless it truly implements ethnic federalism and institutes fundamental governance reform.

The Group – an eminent think-tank presided over by Louise Arbour, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda – calls attention to the fact that "despite his authoritarianism and poor human rights records, Meles became an important asset to the international community, a staunch Western ally in counter-terrorism efforts in the region and a valued development partner for Western and emerging powers. As a result, Ethiopia has become the biggest aid recipient in Africa, though Meles’s government was only able to partially stabilise either the country or region."

In an analysis ‘Ethiopia After Meles’, the Crisis Group Ethiopia’s political system and society have grown increasingly unstable largely because the TPLF has become increasingly repressive, while failing to implement the policy of ethnic federalism it devised over twenty years ago to accommodate the land’s varied ethnic identities.

The result has been greater political centralisation, with concomitant ethnicisation of grievances. The closure of political space has removed any legitimate means for people to channel those grievances. The government has encroached on social expression and curbed journalists, non-governmental organisations and religious freedoms. The cumulative effect is growing popular discontent, as well as radicalisation along religious and ethnic lines.

Weaknesses to the fore

"Meles adroitly navigated a number of internal crises and kept the different TPLF factions under his tight control," says Emilio Manfredi, Crisis Group’s Ethiopia Analyst. "Now that he’s gone, the weaknesses of the regime that he built are more likely to be exposed, and the repercussions could be felt across the region."

The Crisis Group analysts opine that given the opacity of the government and army, it is difficult to say what the new administration might look like or who might eventually lead it. Hailemariam Desalegn, the deputy prime minister named to carry on Meles’s functions, is not a Tigrayan and likely only a figurehead stop-gap. But it is probable the new government will be more fragile, the security forces more influential and internal stability endangered. The Tigrayan elite could be forced to use more repression to hold onto power and control other ethnic groups.

The regional implications are huge, avers the Crisis Grouo. "Greater instability would threaten Ethiopia’s military interventions in Somalia and Sudan, exacerbate tensions with Eritrea and, more broadly, put in question its role as a key Western counter-terrorism ally in the Horn of Africa. If religious or ethnic radicalisation grows, the shockwaves could be felt across borders, with militants linking up with armed Islamist groups elsewhere."

In view of this, the Group asks the international community, particularly Ethiopia’s main allies, the U.S., UK and the European Union (EU), to seek to influence the new transition by making political, military and development assistance dependent on an end to repression, the opening of political space and democratic reforms. They should encourage the new leadership to draw up a clear roadmap for an all-inclusive, peaceful transition, with free and fair elections held within a limited timeframe. They should also help members of the Ethiopian opposition to return from abroad so they can better represent their constituencies, both in the country and in the diaspora.

Crisis Group’s Horn of Africa Project Director EJ Hogendoorn says: "The international community mostly turned a blind eye to Meles’s authoritarian actions and growing dissent in the country. Now it must push the ruling party to revive the rights and freedoms enshrined in the constitution and promote inclusive reforms as the only way to ensure Ethiopia’s internal security and durable development and the region’s fragile stability."

Looking ahead, an analysis by Maplecroft emphasises that "in the short term, major changes in policy are highly unlikely". This is because there are few reasons for Hailemariam to make any immediate alterations to economic policy, "since maintaining investor confidence is vital to sustaining economic growth, which is in turn essential to bolstering his tenuous leadership."

Similarly, the Ethiopian troop presence in Somalia is likely to continue in order to underscore Ethiopia’s importance to its Western allies, while the conflict in Somalia and ongoing hostilities with Eritrea are useful in justifying the harsh security measures taken against domestic opponents.

"There is no immediate likelihood that repressive security measures will be relaxed, since the regime is likely to be concerned that Meles’s death will encourage their long-suppressed opponents to mount an ‘Arab Spring’-style revolt, and more importantly because of the fear that competing factions within the regime could mobilise their ethnic powerbases in an attempt to bolster their influence in the federal government," UK-based Maplecroft risk analysts say.

Resource nationalism

A power struggle could see rivals promoting resource nationalism, risk analysts add. This is because Meles was widely acknowledged as a competent technocrat, who maintained a strict focus on the economy. The country managed to record double-digit growth during much of his time in office, and is projected to achieve 7% growth in the current financial year. The immediate focus of the regime will be on maintaining political stability, and decisions on improving the investment climate and business environment are likely to be deferred. In the longer term, though, significant economic reforms are possible. Meles always had an affinity for a Chinese-style ‘developmental state’, and thus never fully subscribed to neo-liberal economic policies prescribed by international financial institutions.

The analysis warns that international donors may judge that a less secure leader will be more pliable to demands to conduct economic liberalisation. This could result in the privatisation of state-owned enterprises, a measure which may also allow the regime to distribute patronage to its supporters.

"However, the direction of economic policy will depend to a large degree on political stability. As Hailemariam seeks to consolidate his power, there is an increased possibility that he will resort to populist measures, such as insisting on local content provisions in concessions awarded to extractive-sector companies, or by raising taxes or royalties in order to fund poverty-reduction measures," Maplecroft risk analysts say. [IDN-InDepthNews – August 23, 2012]

2012 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

Picture: Meles Zenawi’s body is escorted upon arrival in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa early August 22, 2012. Credit: Crisis Group

This article should not be republished or redistributed without the permission of the original author or copyright holder.


Filed Under: Africa, Featured, Politics Tagged With: ,

Impeachment of Paraguayan President Sparks Institutional Crisis

June 23, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Natalia Ruiz Diaz

ASUNCION, Jun 23 2012 (IPS) – The Paraguayan Congress removed President Fernando Lugo from office Friday in an impeachment trial that lasted only a few hours.

The move, formally based on the constitution, triggered an institutional crisis for the fragile democracy in this South American country, and has been rejected by the rest of Latin America.

Lugo accepted the summary decision, which cannot be appealed, although he likened it to a coup and said the law had been “twisted.”

Vice President Federico Franco will complete Lugo’s term, which ends in August 2013.

Calls from the rest of the region, from Washington to Buenos Aires, for the proceedings to be carried out with guarantees for due process, fell on deaf ears. Nor was a mission of UNASUR (Union of South American Nations) foreign ministers, who arrived Thursday, successful in mediating the crisis.

While thousands of demonstrators gathered outside Congress to protest the impeachment of Lugo, a former Catholic bishop considered a moderate leftist, UNASUR studied the possibility of refusing to recognise the Franco administration, and members of the mission described the impeachment as a coup.

Latin America is thus facing a new institutional crisis, after the June 2009 coup in Honduras, where then President Manuel Zelaya was ousted and flown out of the country in a military coup backed by Congress.

After accepting the decision, Lugo said in a speech that “Today it was not Fernando Lugo who was removed from power; it was Paraguayan history, Paraguayan democracy that have been deeply hurt.”

When he took office in August 2008, the man who was known as “the bishop of the poor” put an end to 61 years of rule by the Colorado Party and launched a process of social inclusion, in one of the most unequal countries of the world.

“Fernando Lugo does not answer to the political classes, or to the mafia or the drug traffickers,” he said.

The lower house of Congress voted Thursday to impeach him, and in the Senate vote on Friday, 39 senators voted to remove him, four opposed the move, and two were absent.

Franco of the Authentic Radical Liberal Party (PLRA), one of Paraguay’s traditional parties, immediately replaced Lugo, who was elected in April 2008 with the backing of an alliance of the PLRA and left-wing political movements.

This week the PLRA suddenly withdrew its support from Lugo, and threw its backing behind the majority coalition in Congress led by the Colorado Party and including two smaller parties, UNACE and Patria Querida, to impeach the president.

”Today in Paraguay, through a constitutional mechanism, the parties are alternating in power,” Franco said, after promising that all international laws and treaties would be respected by the new government.

He announced measures in favour of land reform, referring to the immediate cause of the impeachment, which was the bloody eviction of landless small farmers a week ago who were occupying part of an estate in the northeastern province of Canindeyu.

Eleven peasants and six police were killed in the clash, the latest episode of violence in the context of a long-running problem of land tenure in a country where 85 percent of all farmland is owned by just two percent of the population.

Franco also promised to hand over power on Aug. 15, 2013 to the winner of the April 2013 elections.

Franco was one of the political leaders who met with the mission of foreign ministers sent by UNASUR ahead of the impeachment trial.

The bloc’s secretary general, Ali Rodríquez, said Friday before the Senate vote that the bloc feared bloodshed if Lugo were impeached.

In a statement, the UNASUR mission said it “had not received a satisfactory response” with respect to the preservation of democratic procedures in the impeachment trial.

Rodríguez had stated that the group was pessimistic regarding the success of its mediation efforts because “little can be done about a decision that has already been reached ahead of time.”

UNASUR warned that the impeachment could violate the democracy clauses of the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) trade bloc – to which Paraguay belongs, along with Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay – the 12-member UNASUR, and other Latin American organisations.

Rodríguez told the Telesur TV station that one of the mission’s aims was to help prevent violence from breaking out when the Senate handed down its decision.

The UNASUR’s democratic clause specifies measures to be taken against countries where the political process is not respected, including the possible suspension or expulsion from the bloc.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff called the impeachment trial a coup – a view shared by the foreign ministers of other UNASUR countries, and by Lugo himself.

Organisation of American States (OAS) Secretary General Miguel Insulza expressed deep concern over the crisis in Paraguay and the apparent lack of guarantees of due process for Lugo.

Lugo’s lawyers, who were given just two hours for their defence, were refused more time to prepare. Lugo did not attend the Senate impeachment trial.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro, another member of the UNASUR mission, warned that the bloc was about to take measures “that will shake this country,” and wondered why the country’s political authorities did not wait for Lugo to hand power over to his elected successor in August 2013.

He did not elaborate on the measures that could be taken.

Many businesses and some schools in the capital closed Friday, and hospitals got extra beds ready in case violence broke out.

After the vote in the Senate, disturbances took place outside Congress, where the security forces broke up demonstrations by Lugo supporters.

Analyst Alfredo Boccia said the situation obviously directly benefited Franco, but hurt the country because it created a situation of profound uncertainty.

“It will not be easy for Franco to govern, because he will not have legitimacy,” Boccia told IPS.

He cited the economic impact of the coup in Honduras. “When they removed Zelaya in a very similar way, the economy was seriously hurt. And the same thing could happen in Paraguay,” he said.

Colorado Party analyst Bernardino Cano told IPS that Lugo’s removal was the product of an agreement between the two traditional parties, which are long-time rivals: the PLRA and the Colorado Party.

“What we hope now is that Franco will be sensible enough to understand that he is an acting president,” he said.

* With additional reporting by Estrella Gutiérrez.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Latin America, Politics, Report Tagged With: , , ,

U.S.: "Money Isn’t Speech, Corporations Aren’t People"

January 22, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Kanya D’Almeida

NEW YORK, Jan 21, 2012 (IPS) – In most mainstream media the words "corruption" and "election fraud" accompany images of makeshift polling stations manned by armed guards in Burma or burning tires beside tattered ballot boxes in South Sudan – the insidiousness of stolen elections and a crumbling democracy is very seldom associated with the United States.

But this week, scores of indignant citizens in well over a hundred cities across the U.S. took to the streets to expose how the richest one percent has hijacked the very foundations of democracy in a country whose constitution of 1787 promised to be by the people, for the people.

Jan. 20 marked the second anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission (FEC), where the country’s most respected justices "overturned a hundred years of election finance laws by ruling 5-4 that Congress cannot limit spending by corporations in elections".

The decision struck at the very heart of what many U.S. citizens have felt for years – that despite a careful constitutional separation of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the government, corporate capital had infected the body politic from head to toe.

The result, according to Lisa Graves, executive director of the Centre for Media and Democracy (CMD) and a coordinating member of the constellation of organisations dubbed United for the People, has been an increase in outside spending on elections from 68.9 million dollars in 2008 to 304.7 million after the ruling.

"Today, we have turned out activists in hundreds of cities across the country to protests the idea that money is speech and corporations are entitled to equal rights as human beings," Graves told IPS.

"We are demanding that this decision be overturned by a constitutional amendment," she added.

According to United for the People’s statement of common purpose, "Generations of Americans have amended the Constitution over the years to ensure that "We the People" means all the people, not just the privileged few. The Citizens United case, which opened the floodgates to unlimited corporate spending to influence elections at all levels of government, has brought home the importance of amending the Constitution to ensure that ‘We the People’ does not mean we the corporations."

By ruling that the government cannot curb spending and lobbying by unions, corporations or even powerful individual stakeholders, the Supreme Court green-lit the proliferation of Super PACs (political action committees) that are unfettered by electoral laws or transparency and free to pour unprecedented amounts of money into campaigns of their choosing.

Super PACs can also drag their feet on releasing hard data on how much money actually changes hands during election cycles and, in the new arena of impunity granted by the Supreme Court, can accept donations from registered 501(c) nonprofit entities that are exempt from exposing the identities of those who bankroll elections at will.

Much of this money is funneled directly into TV ads, the bulk of them bordering on smear campaigns against opposing candidates. According to investment banking and asset management firm Needham and Co., television stations this year will rake in as much as eight billion dollars from political campaigns.

President Barack Obama’s own campaign adviser, David Axelrod, claims that these competing commercials have become the "nuclear weapon" on the battlefield of electoral politics.

With the "occupy" movement still blazing despite the freezing weather, hundreds of protestors amassed outside multiple courthouses Friday under the banner "occupy the courts", chanting and passing out flyers about the corrosive impact of corporate influence in politics.

"The Citizens United ruling is the perfect example of the undemocratic nature of a society controlled by the one percent," Tony Murphy, an organiser with Occupy For Jobs, told IPS.

Murphy was arrested Monday for participating in a peaceful action inside the lobby of a Bank of America, in commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

"We didn’t block anybody from using the ATM machines – we were arrested for nothing more than calling for a comprehensive jobs programme, like the kind we saw in the 1930s, where the government put millions of people to work. The only way to fund such a programme today would be to get money from the one percent who are sitting on top of trillions that really belong to the people," he added.

"A society run for the one percent will always allow them to write their own legislation and govern in ways that are favourable to (capital)," Murphy said.

"This is why ‘occupation’ has been seized as a method of struggle: it has become clear to us that the avenues hitherto open to the people, like voting and legislation, are controlled by the one percent. Now it’s our right to occupy the buildings and institutions that we know should be democratically run."

Riding on the momentum of Friday’s nationwide actions, scores more people congregated outside major banks like Chase and Bank of America and the headquarters of multinationals like Chevron and Monsanto on Saturday, in an "occupy the corporations" action to draw attention to the biggest beneficiaries of ‘corporate personhood.’

Koch Industries – the multi-billion dollar project of the Koch brothers, which funds faux grassroots campaigns to eviscerate the few remaining labour and environmental protections available in the U.S. – have also come under fire from activists for epitomising the Goliath in the fight against dark money in electoral politics.

Thanks to the Supreme Court’s ruling two years ago, it is now virtually impossible to track the money channeled by Americans for Prosperity, the brainchild of billionaire oil baron David Koch, which acts as a front for various groups bankrolling the Tea Party.

"We won’t know until 2013 how much was raised and spent this year by Americans for Prosperity," Graves told IPS. "And under the current law, we may never know who exactly put money into the organization and enabled whatever political outcomes arise (as a result of that sponsorship)."

Princeton university professor Cornell West, who was arrested late last December for protesting on the steps of the Supreme Court, perhaps put it best in his book "Democracy Matters" when he wrote, " (The) illicit marriage of corporate and political elites … promotes the pervasive sleepwalking of the populace, who see that the false prophets are handsomely rewarded with money, status, and access to more power."

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2011.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Featured, Human Rights, Inequality, Justice, Media, Social Justice, United States Tagged With: , ,

Egypt Continues March to Democracy

January 18, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

Woman casting her vote By Ernest Corea*

IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

WASHINGTON DC (IDN) – As the January 23 deadline for the inauguration of Egypt’s first post-Mubarak People’s Assembly (parliament) approaches, the thoughts of politically conscious Egyptians must inevitably turn to the conundrums that lie beyond the recently concluded elections. Prominent among these is the role of the military as the country continues – or attempts to continue – its transition from oligarchic military rule to a nascent democracy.

President Jimmy Carter’s account of how the military views its place in the political structure confirms the crucial nature of this issue. Briefly, the military’s approach is: Yes, but. (Carter who was in Egypt as an election monitor had wide ranging discussions with key political figures.).

Al Jazeera reported that following his contacts with the leadership of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), Carter said: "The military would like to transfer full control and authority to elected officials." In his assessment, however, "the military wished to continue to have a political role."

Carter explained: "When I met with military leaders, my impression was they want to have some special privilege in the government after the president is elected," and added his own belief that "the military should be completely subservient to the elected civilian officials".

There you are: Yes, but.

Power Role

The SCAF concept of a democratically elected regime co-existing with an authoritarian military power within the same national power structure appears unworkable. SCAF, it would seem, wants the country to be "slightly democratic."

The armed services, however, appear to be confident about their own strength and unity. This is confirmed by the announced visit to Libya of SCAF head Field Marshal Tantawi. Military leaders who fear that their back is exposed rarely leave home.

On top of SCAF’s desire to retain a power-role, the post-Mubarak conduct of the military has been fraught with dangers to civil liberty, as assessed by Amnesty International in its 2011 report on the Middle East and North Africa.

Although SCAF "pledged repeatedly to deliver on the demands of the January 25 revolution, " Amnesty International "found that they had in fact been responsible for a catalogue of abuses that was in some aspects worse than under Hosni Mubarak.

"The army and security forces have violently suppressed protests, resulting in at least 84 deaths between October and December 2011. Torture in detention has continued while more civilians have been tried before military courts in one year than under 30 years of Mubarak’s rule."

Time to Celebrate

Carter found that 900 claims of election malpractices were made. At the same time, there was much violence during the election period, some of it demonstrably by or with the connivance of the military.

Nevertheless, despite all the difficulties up to now and those that might lie ahead, "the march to democracy has started. These (the elections) are the first fruits of our revolution of January 25. It is time to celebrate. But it is also time to pay homage to the dead and wounded who made this possible. The fallen must never be forgotten," Ismail Serageldin, a distinguished Egyptian intellectual, Director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and formerly a Vice President of the World Bank, told IDN via email.

Elections to the People’s Assembly have been completed, and figures released up to January 9 (i.e. excluding the results of run-off elections held January 10-11) show the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, ahead of other contestants, with a haul of 193 seats out of 498. (Ten more members of the Assembly will be nominated by the President, bringing total Assembly membership to 508.)

The Salafist Al Nour, a conservative Islamist group, was second with 108 seats. Other parties or coalitions that reached double figures were Al Wafd with 38 seats, Egyptian Block (30), Reform and Development (11) and the Revolution Continues (10).

The key responsibility of the Assembly in the coming months will be to choose a 100-member constitutional council that will draft the country’s post-dictatorship constitution. The extent to which SCAF keeps its hands off the selection of the council and its deliberations will provide a very clear indication of how interventionist its continuing conduct will be.

Highest Turnout

Egypt’s parliamentary elections were held in three rounds as there are insufficient judges to monitor all the polling stations in the country simultaneously. Forty seven political parties, some of them loose-knit coalitions of like-minded groups, fielded over 6000 candidates in all.

A second three round election will be held from January 29 to March 11 to select the 270 members of Egypt’s upper house, the Shura Council. The country’s new president is expected to be elected in June.

Even at this stage, however, reaction within Egypt to the transition, long drawn out as it is, from a dictatorship to a democracy grounded in the will of the people, is one of great enthusiasm.

Serageldin captures that spirit when he says:

"The wide spread of political ideas represented in the election campaign is great. Democracy is about pluralism, and pluralism is about differences of views. The point is to settle these differences through the ballot box, not by confrontation in the streets. Egypt needs us all…."

Some 62 percent of eligible voters (over 8 million people) participated in the first round. Compare this with voter turnout in US federal elections of 56.8 percent in 2008 and 37.1 percent in 2006.

"This is the highest turnout in Egypt’s history since pharaonic times until now," said Abdel Moez Ibrahim, the head of Egypt’s Elections High Commission.

Reaching Out

Throughout the election campaign, the FJP and its originator the Muslim Brotherhood, said that their goal is to create a free, secular state. Much now depends on the extent to which they govern by that assurance.

The Muslim Brotherhood knows that it has achieved a high level of acceptance in society partly as compensation for the suffering it endured under the Mubarak regime, and also because of the social and economic support it provided the poor through efficient and effective networks of health clinics, schools, and other social services.

Expectations of systemic expansion and improvement among those who benefited from these services will be high. This, at a time when Egypt is trying to climb back to the annual GDP growth rate of 7 percent it achieved before it felt the impact of global recession. So this is not a time for ideology but for ideas that can generate action.

It is a time for consensus building and a time for reaching out to combine the various strands of the country’s substantial human resources. The world saw what they could achieve together, during the January revolution. But uniting is not going to be easy, particularly after a hard-fought election.

Political parties elected to the Assembly have demonstrated their commitment – at this stage, at any rate – to consensus building, by agreeing to share leadership positions in the Assembly.

A kind of olive branch has, meanwhile been extended to the armed services, through unofficial but distinct speculation about amnesty to the military for past actions.

Changing Course

Internationally, it will be difficult for governments and institutions that played footsie with Mubarak’s dictatorship and sustained it, all in the name of "stability," to change course and move into a realistic relationship, based on mutual interests, with a new, post-Mubarak government.

The Government of Israel, already isolated, and now reportedly building a barrier along the Sinai border, will be concerned that Egypt could reject existing bilateral agreements in spite of the assurance by the Muslim Brotherhood and other political entities that they will not.

The US in particular will face tough challenges ahead. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton considered Mubarak a "family friend", she told Al Arabiya in 2009. She will now have to forge a new kind of friendship with whoever becomes her potential partner in the next Egyptian government.

A positive sign is that the US Government has already made contact with the Muslim Brotherhood, thus rejecting the course of antagonism followed by the Bush Administration in reacting to the election victory in Gaza by Hamas, a fraternal party of the Brotherhood.

The US Government has poured billions of dollars into Egypt since the Camp David accords were signed. Most of those aid funds went to Egypt’s armed services. Can the US Government and, in particular, the military, find an effective means of using that relationship as leverage to ensure that the Egyptian military does not stand in the way of genuine progress?

Then, of course, there is the brooding, "1000-lb gorilla" encircling the US-Egypt relationship: the issue of Palestinian rights and security. Any Egyptian government that is created by the will of the people will be supportive of the Palestinian cause. That new reality has to be understood and appreciated. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta’s recent assertion that Israel must “get to the damn table” is a small but well noted first move.

Free and Just Society

Egypt has launched a process of significance to itself, to the region, and to the international community. Whether that process results in the creation of a truly free and just society will depend very much on the Egyptians themselves. They have, throughout the revolution that tragically took so many lives but dislodged the jackboot of dictatorship, managed their affairs with dedication and skill. There is no reason why they should not continue to manage their post-revolution process in similar fashion.

But, given the world’s interdependence, they cannot possibly succeed entirely on their own. They will need and deserve all the support they can muster.

[Ernest Corea] *The writer has served as Sri Lanka’s ambassador to Canada, Cuba, Mexico, and the USA. He was Chairman of the Commonwealth Select Committee on the media and development, Editor of the Ceylon ‘Daily News’ and the Ceylon ‘Observer’, and was for a time Features Editor and Foreign Affairs columnist of the Singapore ‘Straits Times’. He is Global Editor of IDN-InDepthNews and a member of its editorial board as well as President of the Media Task Force of Global Cooperation Council. [IDN-InDepthNews – January 18, 2012]

Copyright © 2012 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

This article should not be republished or redistributed without the permission of the original author or copyright holder.


Filed Under: Commentary, Middle East, Politics Tagged With: ,

Egypt’s March To Democracy Moves On

December 6, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

Collage of election pictures By Ernest Corea

IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

WASHINGTON DC (IDN) – "This first round (of post-Mubarak elections in Egypt) was truly great. No violence, good participation, many candidates. Orderly queues, waiting hours if need be….It is a most promising start for a new future. The people are participating in very large numbers in an orderly, free and fair election and that is the most important thing…

"The march to democracy has started. These are the first fruits of our revolution of January 25. It is time to celebrate. But it is also time to pay homage to the dead and wounded who made this possible. The fallen must never be forgotten," Ismail Serageldin, a distinguished Egyptian intellectual, Director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and formerly a Vice President of the World Bank, told IDN via email.

The first round of elections to the lower house of parliament, known as the People’s Assembly, was held on November 28 and 29. Complete results were not available at the time of writing (December 3) because, as Al Jazeera reported quoting election officials, only a small number of candidates won outright. Others failed to reach the required minimum of 50 percent. Runoffs will therefore be held shortly.

Already, however, representatives of political parties who have been monitoring the voting and conducting exit polls, see an emerging trend of an ascendant Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the political arm of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, followed by the Salafist Al Nour, a conservative Islamist group and, trailing behind them, the liberal-secular Egyptian Bloc.

The People’s Assembly will consist of 508 members, 498 elected by the people and 10 appointed by the president. Members will serve five-year terms. A key responsibility in the coming months will be to choose a 100-member constitutional council to draft the country’s post-dictatorship constitution.

Highest Turnout

Egypt’s parliamentary elections are held in three rounds as there are insufficient judges to monitor all the polling stations in the country simultaneously. The first round of elections to the People’s Assembly will be followed by two more rounds on December 14 and January 3, 2012. Forty seven political parties, some of them loose-knit coalitions of like-minded groups, are fielding over 6000 candidates in all.

A second three round election will be held from January 29 to March 11, 2012 to select the 270 members of Egypt’s upper house, the Shura Council. The country’s new president is to be elected in June.

Even at this stage, however, with elections far from complete, reaction within Egypt to the transition, long drawn out as it is, from a dictatorship to a democracy grounded in the will of the people, is one of great enthusiasm.

Serageldin captures that spirit when he says:

"The wide spread of political ideas represented in the election campaign is great. Democracy is about pluralism, and pluralism is about differences of views. The point is to settle these differences through the ballot box, not by confrontation in the streets. Egypt needs us all…."

Some 62 percent of eligible voters (over 8 million people) participated in the first round. Compare this with voter turnout in US federal elections of 56.8 percent in 2008 and 37.1 percent in 2006.

"This is the highest turnout in Egypt’s history since pharaonic times until now," said Abdel Moez Ibrahim, the head of Egypt’s Elections High Commission.

No Women Elected

A successful post-dictatorship election (assuming it will be) does not resolve all the issues that inspired Egypt’s pro-freedom revolution. For instance, while there have been no indications or allegations of malpractice by election officials, the election process itself has caused some unhappiness among younger voters because officials who were in charge of holding elections in the past continue to be managing the process even now.

This negative mood is aggravated by concerns that the military who are still calling the shots will try every trick in the book, and some that are not in the book, to perpetuate their power, leaving the elected parliament to function as a powerless talking shop.

If the current electoral trend is confirmed by final results – and most observers, local and foreign are convinced that it will be – that is bound to discourage liberal-secularists who were in the vanguard of the movement that toppled Mubarak.

Women, in particular, who found new roles for themselves in the pro-democracy movement, must necessarily be concerned that a conservative government might want to introduce and enforce laws that give women a subservient place in society. They cannot find comfort in (unconfirmed) reports that no women were elected in the first round.

Reaching Out

Countering these"amber warning signs" on Egypt’s political pathway is the fact that the FJP and its originator, the Muslim Brotherhood, said throughout the election campaign that their goal is to create a free, secular state. Much now depends on the extent to which they govern by that assurance.

The Muslim Brotherhood knows that it has achieved a high level of acceptance in society partly as compensation for the suffering it endured under the Mubarak regime, and also because of the social and economic support it provided the poor through efficient and effective networks of health clinics, schools, and other social services.

Expectations of systemic expansion and improvement among those who benefited from these services will be high. This, at a time when Egypt is trying to climb back to the annual GDP growth rate of 7 percent it achieved before it felt the impact of global recession. So this is not a time for ideology but for ideas that can generate action.

It is a time for consensus building and a time for reaching out to combine the various strands of the country’s substantial human resources. The world saw what they could achieve together, during the January revolution. But uniting is not going to be easy, particularly after a hard-fought election.

Changing Course

Internationally, it will be difficult for governments and institutions that played footsie with Mubarak’s dictatorship and sustained it, all in the name of "stability," to change course and move into a realistic relationship, based on mutual interests, with a new, post-Mubarak government.

The Government of Israel, already isolated, and now reportedly building a barrier along the Sinai border, will be concerned that Egypt could reject existing bilateral agreements in spite of the assurance by the Muslim Brotherhood and other political entities that they will not.

The US in particular will face tough challenges ahead. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton considered Mubarak a "family friend", she told Al Arabiya in 2009. She will now have to forge a new kind of friendship with whoever becomes her potential partner in the next Egyptian government.

The US Government has poured billions of dollars into Egypt since the Camp David accords were signed. Most of those aid funds went to Egypt’s armed services. Can the US Government and, in particular, the military, find an effective means of using that relationship as leverage to ensure that the Egyptian military does not stand in the way of genuine progress?

Then, of course, there is the brooding, "1000-lb gorilla" encircling the US-Egypt relationship: the issue of Palestinian rights and security. Any government that is created by the will of the people will be supportive of the Palestinian cause. That new reality has to be understood and appreciated. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta’s recent assertion that Israel must “get to the damn table” is a small but well noted first step.

Free and Just Society

With the elections now in progress, Egypt has launched a process of significance to itself, to the region, and to the international community. Whether that process results in the creation of a new and just society will depend very much on the Egyptians themselves. They have, throughout the revolution that tragically took so many lives but dislodged the jackboot of dictatorship, managed their affairs with dedication and skill. There is no reason why they should not continue to manage their post-revolution process in similar fashion.

But, given the world’s interdependence, they cannot possibly succeed entirely on their own. They will need and deserve all the support they can muster. [IDN-InDepthNews – December 4, 2011]

Ernest Corea’s previous IDN articles:

http://www.indepthnews.info/index.php/search?searchword=ernest%20corea&ordering=newest&searchphrase=all

Picture: Collage of election picturess | Credit: Carnegie Endowment

Copyright © 2011 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

This article should not be republished or redistributed without the permission of the original author or copyright holder.


Filed Under: Elections, Middle East, Politics, Report Tagged With: ,

The Latin Lessons for Arab Revolutionaries

July 8, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

By Hari Seshasayee*

IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis     
    
MUMBAI (IDN) – The scenes that plagued Latin America through the 1980s bear a striking resemblance to those enveloping the Arab World since Mohamed Bouazizi set himself ablaze in Tunisia nearly 30 years later. In Latin America, street protests reflected the rising frustrations of the middle class, marketplaces were bombed by those angry at incumbent autocrats and citizens rallied against police brutality.

Within a decade, Latin America’s revolts had brought down 14 military dictators. Likewise, the Arab Spring’s cries for democracy have resonated in the region, bringing about regime change in Tunisia and Egypt, while 13 other countries across the Arab world continue to simmer with anger.

The two continents are geographies apart, but their political parallels run deep. In their pre-revolt period, both Latin American and the Arab nations had a youthful middle class population rising against authoritative regimes, fighting against human rights violations, mass unemployment and extreme poverty.

The countries in each region were also united by language – Latin America with Spanish and Portuguese, the Arab world with Arabic and French. Significantly, neither revolt spread to a country that was not home to one of these languages.

There are other recent examples of democratisation, such as the post-Communist Eastern European nations, almost all of which are now part of the European Union (EU). But unlike Latin America, Eastern Europe had only a fragmented identity. For example, while Argentina, Chile and Peru share Spanish as a language and Catholicism as the dominant religion, Poland, Hungary and Romania speak Polish, Hungarian and Romanian and have religious identities ranging from Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestantism.

In addition, the Helsinki Accord signed in 1975 by almost all European states catalyzed the transition of the newly democratized European countries. It provided the kind of institutional framework that Latin America did not have during transition.

The fall of Latin American military dictators was followed by periods of hyperinflation as the region plummeted into la década perdida (the lost decade), when debt restructuring and sovereign default was the norm for almost every Latin American nation.

That pattern is repeating itself in the Arab states. In Egypt, the economy has shrunk 7% and a large chunk of the population still remains unemployed after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak’s regime. Now, in a familiar pattern, thousands of pro-reforms protesters have returned to Tahrir Square.

This is where the Latin American example can prove to be a useful guide. Despite its economic woes, Latin America pursued several policies that aided the region’s relatively successful transition to democracy. There are two important strategies that the Arab World can emulate:

First, Latin America increased education levels and reduced the gender gap. This was done largely through the use of social reforms such as ‘conditional cash transfers’, where citizens received funds from the government only if they participated in basic services. Nicaragua, for instance, achieved a 28.4% increase in primary education enrollment of children living in extreme poverty between 2002 and 2004.

To be fair, the Arab world has made an attempt at replicating such programmes. In 2009, Morocco launched a pilot of its own conditional cash transfer program, Tayssir, financed with support from the World Bank. Egypt began a similar pilot in villages in 2009 with the state-funded Minhet El-Osra. Such programs may suit countries like Yemen and Libya, which have increasingly high birth rates and extremely low high school enrolment ratios, especially among girls.

Second, Latin America also provided its citizens a platform for addressing social grievances. In several countries this took the form of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRC) to investigate human rights abuses and provide much-needed healing.

Peru’s TRC, for instance, presented the findings of its report on human rights violations to the public in 2003. A year later, the government led by Alejandro Toledo appointed special prosecutors to investigate crimes committed since the 1980’s leading up to human rights violations of the impeached Fujimori government of 2000.

The monarchs of the Gulf nations will be reluctant to create similar investigative commissions but the successor governments in Tunisia and Egypt will see it as an opportunity to provide the transparency and justice that they have promised to their people. Libya’s rebel leaders have already expressed their intention of setting up a TRC as soon as the opportunity presents itself.

There is much that countries in transition can learn from each other. Parallels between Latin American and the Arab world’s current situation will stay as comparisons only, unless there is an active exchange of ideas.

The Arab-South American Summit, brainchild of former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, will go some distance in facilitating that exchange. The first summit was held in 2005, and the second summit, in 2009, resulted in the adoption of an 11-point declaration on political affairs, the peace process in the Middle East, and economic cooperation. The third summit is still expected to take place later this year, despite being postponed from February 15 due to the Arab Spring protests.

Tunisia’s election, scheduled for October 23, will be the litmus test for protesting Arab citizens. Its success – or failure – will determine whether the Arab Spring will wilt, or flower and follow the example of Latin America to become an impetus for lasting change.

*Hari Seshasayee is a Researcher at Gateway House, Indian Council on Global Relations, in Mumbai. This article appeared first on June 17, 2011 on http://www.gatewayhouse.in (IDN-InDepthNews/06.07.2011)

2011 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

This article should not be republished or redistributed without the permission of the original author or copyright holder.


Filed Under: Development, Featured, Middle East, Politics Tagged With: , , ,

MEDIA-LATIN AMERICA: The Seduction of Power

June 26, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Raúl Pierri

MONTEVIDEO, Jun 24, 2011 (IPS) – The governments and big private media groups in Latin America are waging a war to win over public opinion, the ultimate arbiter of legitimacy, and the only solution would appear to be to strike up an alliance.

"Battle" was the most oft-repeated term in the seminar on "Communication, pluralism and the role of new technologies; the Latin American scenario: looking towards the future", organised Friday Jun 24 by the Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency with the support of the World Bank and the Uruguayan government.

Journalists and editors of public and private media outlets, representatives of civil society and governments, and experts on communication from the region took part in the seminar.

The battle between the State and private media for control of news management has come to the forefront in recent years in Latin America, as left-of-centre governments have been elected in most countries in the region and have found themselves embroiled in confrontations with powerful media interests.

Left-wing governments have had to negotiate peaceful coexistence with the economic elites, but at the same time they have sought to transform communications, attempting to democratise the media, by passing news laws for example, said Fábio Zanini, international editor at the Brazilian daily Folha de Sao Paulo.

Zanini cited the example of former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2011), who in order to be elected "had to build a strategic media-savvy political movement to show the banks, ‘big capital’ and the large landowners that he was trustworthy and reliable, and to draw right-wing parties into his coalition."

Basically, leftist governments, and right-wing administrations like the government of Sebastián Piñera in Chile as well, have recognised the vital importance of the media, with which "they have a conflict-ridden relationship," Zanini said.

Uruguayan presidential secretary Alberto Breccia preferred to describe the relationship between the left and the press as "schizophrenic," and urged the participants to help make it healthier.

Zanini underscored the efforts of governments to expand their means of communication, by establishing or overhauling public TV and radio stations, but he expressed doubts as to whether they were truly impartial, and warned that they could end up serving merely as government propaganda tools.

Alberto Medina, co-director of news at the private Caracol TV station of Colombia, said there was "a war over information between the public and private sectors.

"I’m not convinced that governments open up their channels to all of the different sectors" and points of view, he said.

"I am a bit sceptical of these public media stations that are supposedly so democratic. I don’t see spaces made available to the opposition on the public stations. They are channels that defend the positions of the government of the day," he said.

In the midst of this confrontation, the mission of community stations "is to make the fight for freedom of expression a general demand," María Pía Matta, president of the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC), told IPS.

"We do not want to be turned into agents of the government de jure either," she said. "I think the debate has to focus more on freedoms in general, and freedom of speech in particular, and on why the State has distanced itself so much from these freedoms."

In this region, "the State has always been considered a natural predator of freedom of speech, an idea that has taken root," she added.

The director of the left-leaning private Uruguayan newspaper La República, Federico Fasano, said there were not only two parties to the battle, but three: the state, the media, and society as a whole.

"Information is a public good, a public asset. And although it is subject to private appropriation, because of the way the system is set up, it is important to discourage monopolies and foment pluralism," he said.

Fasano, who is also director of the AM Libre radio station and the TV Libre television station, said the mere existence of various media outlets with different owners does not necessarily mean there is media pluralism in a country. "If there is only one hegemonic way of thinking, even if they are different media outlets, it is a quasi-monopoly," he maintained.

The seminar was followed in real time over the Internet, and dozens of people chatted about the content and sent the panellists questions.

Among the issues discussed by the on-line participants was the role played by social networking sites like Twitter in the Arab uprisings and the 15M social protest movement in Spain.

In the seminar, the Salvadoran government’s director of communications, David Rivas, defended measures his country has taken to control information and eliminate programming that, he said, was "psychologically harmful."

"We removed programmes that previous governments had left in the public media which had a heavy ideological bent, portraying society as a world divided between the wealthy and the ‘bad guys’, denigrating women, and showing things that bordered on criminal behaviour," he said.

Rivas also insisted that "we have to lose our fear of regulation" of content and of laws "that ensure greater public access to the media.

"There is no absolute right, not even the right to freedom of expression. Those who told us that ‘the best law is no law’ have been deceiving us all along," he said.

That phrase was cited months ago by the seminar’s keynote speaker, Uruguayan President José Mujica, who spoke out at the time against a proposal to legislate the media in this country, set forth, ironically, by members of his own party.

Mujica did not repeat the phrase in the seminar, but urged the participants to wage a "permanent struggle" for freedom.

"Although the modern, contemporary media are capable of offering us unimaginable resources for communicating, they can also be the most formidable instruments of oppression, of denial of freedom, that mankind has known," he said.

"This means that the question of how and for what purposes technological progress is used is a central, almost desperate battle," he added.

Miguel Wiñazki, chief editor of the Clarín newspaper in Argentina, said that because public opinion is "a collective that grants power," political forces and the media struggle to seduce it.

"Understanding the predominant beliefs, prejudices and ideologies of public opinion, governments as well as political forces and the private media tend to ignore the value of information in and of itself, in order to give public opinion the plot lines it believes," said Wiñazki.

"The real journalistic work is the day-to-day battle of press workers to make information win out over the news people want," and over propaganda, he said.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2011.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Featured, Latin America, Media Tagged With: ,

CHILE: Dictatorship-Era Law Used to Squelch Activism

May 26, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Pamela Sepúlveda

SANTIAGO, May 25, 2011 (IPS) – "What is happening in Chile isn’t justice; it’s a pantomime, because under the anti-terrorism law, there is absolutely no way justice can be done," José Venturelli, spokesman for the European Secretariat of the Ethics Commission against Torture, said on a recent visit to this South American country.

The controversial law that Venturelli was referring to has been used to try members of Chile’s Mapuche indigenous community involved in the long-running struggle for their right to land.

Ramón Llanquileo, José Huenuche and Jonathan Huillical, sentenced to 20 years in prison, and Héctor Llaitul, sentenced to 25 years, began a hunger strike on Mar. 15 in a prison in southern Chile, demanding a fair and impartial retrial.

The four Mapuche activists were not actually tried under the counter-terrorism law, which dates back to the 1973-1990 dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet and has been widely condemned by the international community.

But although they were tried under ordinary criminal law, the case against them was built on the investigation carried out under the anti-terrorism legislation, and their recent conviction was based on the testimony of police officers and anonymous witnesses.

The four were found guilty of theft of lumber and attempted murder for allegedly attacking a prosecutor riding in a motorcade in 2008 in the southern town of Tirúa, 700 km south of the capital.

Ten activists arrested is the so-called "caso bombas" (bombs case) ended a 65-day hunger strike in April, held to protest an alleged frame-up and their trial under the anti-terrorism law. They were arrested for allegedly setting off 29 bombs in Santiago in incidents dating back to 2005. But most of the supposed evidence against them was thrown out by the judge.

Although the dictatorship-era law has been reformed several times, its critics, in Chile and around the world, say it is still a draconian measure used against Mapuche leaders and land right activists.

The Mapuche, Chile’s largest indigenous group, number nearly one million in this country of over 16 million people, and the struggle for their ancestral land in the south of the country has frequently pitted them against large landholders, logging companies and other private interests.

The law "has been modernised, but in terms that would make it appear that the state’s repressive apparatus must indispensably have an extreme mechanism" to resort to, lawyer Julio Cortés told IPS.

Legal experts say the law violates the right to the presumption of innocence and thus makes a fair trial impossible.

Under the law, prosecutors may keep their evidence secret, anonymous witnesses can testify for the prosecution, prosecutors may apply for powers to tap telephones and intercept correspondence, emails and other communications, suspects can be held for up to ten days before formal charges are brought, and detainees often face long periods of pretrial detention and disproportionately long sentences.

Another danger is double jeopardy, because some Mapuche detainees are tried for the same crime by the civilian and military justice systems, with the two sentences served consecutively, which is considered a legal aberration.

In a report issued last year on Chile, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) stated that without a clear definition for terrorism, the law grants officials wide discretion in determining what is terrorist behaviour.

Right-wing Chilean President Sebastián Piñera admitted that the law was flawed, but defended the need for it.

It is necessary "to bring our ant-terrorism legislation into line with the standards of democracies in the developed world, but that must not mean that we let our guard down against this cruel, merciless scourge, which is itself a grave violation of basic rights," Piñera said in his annual state of the nation address on Saturday May 21.

"It’s true that after 2001 (the 9/11 attacks in Washington and New York), powers to combat terrorism at a global level increased…but in the case of this Chilean law, it allows crimes against property to be treated as terrorist crimes, which is disproportionate," Cortés said.

The IACHR also criticises the use of protected or "faceless" witnesses, whose elimination was called for by independent, socialist and communist lawmakers in a new attempt to modify the law.

"The possibility of gathering evidence through protected witnesses and experts," and of paying them for testifying, perverts the essence of evidence and impartiality and encourages accusations "in exchange for money and the fabrication of evidence," says the parliamentary initiative presented in April.

Weapon against Mapuche protests

There are 49 Mapuche leaders and activists currently facing charges or serving sentences for crimes investigated or prosecuted under the anti-terrorism law.

The four hunger strikers have appealed to the Supreme Court to annul the ruling on the grounds that the trial was plagued with irregularities and that their constitutional rights were violated. The Court is due to hand down its verdict in June.

In the meantime, government spokeswoman Ena von Baer urged the hunger strikers to call off their protest.

"An autonomous decision was handed down by the courts, and it is not the government’s place to comment on legal decisions," she said.

Mapuche and human rights groups say the arrests of native activists and their supporters must be understood in the context of the struggle for their land, which does not involve terrorist actions or illegal association.

Since 2008, the anti-terrorism law has also been used to try five members of the Mapuche community under the age of 18.

"Of course it is even more serious when conventions signed and ratified by Chile, like the Convention on the Rights of the Child, are disregarded," José Horacio Wood, director of the ANIDE children’s rights foundation, told IPS.

All minors under the age of 18 must be tried in Chile under the law on adolescent criminal responsibility.

Law targets not only Mapuche protesters

The defendants in the "bomb case" denounce the same irregularities in the investigation and excessive periods of detention protested by the imprisoned Mapuche activists.

"What happened with the Mapuche defendants was basically a laboratory on how to apply this law in times of democracy," said Cortés, the defence attorney in the "bomb case."

The 14 suspects in that case – an anthropologist, university students, squatters, anarchists and former guerrillas who fought the Pinochet dictatorship – are accused of illicit terrorist association and of setting off 29 bombs. Ten of the defendants went on a 65-day hunger strike from February to April.

"The ‘bomb case’ would seem to be the ‘rigged’ or ‘setup’ case, because it turns out that it is hard to find any acceptable proof," said Venturelli, referring to the more than 2,500 pieces of "evidence" presented by the prosecutors that were thrown out in the trial, including books on anarchy, fire extinguishers, bicycles, printers and newspapers.

Critics of the anti-terrorism law see it a dangerous instrument with the potential to be abused in the suppression of political dissent and protest, since it annuls the possibility and right to a defence.

"By means of the anti-terrorism law, they have managed to maintain pressure on any kind of protest," said Venturelli.

The four hunger strikers have lost between 17 and 21 kilos since they began the hunger strike in mid-March. They are suffering from fever, severe muscle cramps and headaches, extreme weakness, and dizziness.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2011.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Featured, Human Rights, Justice, Latin America, Politics Tagged With: , ,
«Older Posts